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Murderbot, she wrote

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Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#91

Post by HelloMcFly »

vundercind wrote: post #75
dageshi wrote: post #20

I'm a bit mystified by the hype for murderbot. I read it and thought it was OK but a lot of people rave about it. Still not every book is for every person, it didn't connect with me but it very obviously has its fans.

I have found recommendations of (especially) genre novels from people I don't personally know to be nearly useless. The usual problem is that the work is just OK but gets talked up like it's great. Sometimes, it's outright bad. I've got enough past actually-greats—genre and otherwise—to catch up on, I don't need 100 "OMG it's so good!" comments from a dozen sites steering me toward a newer book that turns out to be p…

I agree. Letterboxd makes this easy to accomplish with movies, and there's enough people covering videogames out there that you can usually find someone to dial-in on your taste (or find a Steam curator that lists a lot of stuff you love). TV is a bit harder, but you may be able to find a critic with a consistent voice that matches your own through Rotten Tomatoes (not the aggregate score alone) or maybe a podcast about TV where you learn their preference dial vs. your own.

But books? The level of investment to make these determinations is larger, and there's less people doing it. Or maybe I just haven't found the answer yet.

I also don't think it helps that people either like a book or immediately say "bad writing" or "too YA", which then make others that disagree look like simpletons just for disagreeing. Creates a hard place for dialogue.

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#92

Post by jandrese »

the_af wrote: post #84
giraffe_lady wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to have a lot of resonance with trans people too. I'm autistic but there's enough overlap between the two groups that I've noticed how people in both communities react to the series.

One thing I found cool about Murderbot is that there's no implication "it" is of any particular gender. I'm a man, so I went in with my prejudices and automatically assumed Murderbot is a "he". When reading a review that considered it a "she", I re-read most of it and there's no single indication of its gender, if Murderbot even assumes one. I found that interesting, kind of like that trick Ursula K. Le Guin pulled w…

I read murderbot as androgynous. I’m pretty sure they even mention how there are no reproductive organs because why would a SecUnit have that? There is even a story where Murderbot befriends a sexbot and feels glad not to have to deal with that sort of complicated hardware.

There are parts of the story where Murderbot passes as either a man or a woman so I figure the body shape must be fairly neutral.

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#93

Post by HelloMcFly »

dartharva wrote: post #38
romanows wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Murderbot doesn't have a gender, so it'll probably be a pretty androgynous look anyway. I listened to Kevin R Free's fantastic narration, so maybe I would have expected a male actor, except that I do the aphantasia thing and never visualize anything from books to begin with!

Murderbot frequently blends into the crowd as a dude though, that's a recurring theme in the series.

I'm willing to believe you are right, but not without someone finding the text to indicate as such. I do not recall this being the case, but I've only read the first two.

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#94

Post by alexitorg »

moh_maya wrote: post #45
ajford wrote: post #2

One of my favorite series in the last few years. The tech side of things are believable enough (at least compared to the usual handwavy nature of sci-fi books) and now I understand why, as it seems Wells has a history in IT! I'm struggling to not gush about this book and trying to avoid spoilers, but if you like a good sci-fi action/adventure book with a strong lean towards a journey of self discover it's really wort…

I echo this. If you liked murderbot, you might also like the Battleship Chronicles series by L. Claire (1), and ofcourse, the Imperial Radh series by Ann Leickie (2), and bobiverse, mentioned below, by Dennis Taylor (3), among others.. (1) https://www.goodreads.com/series/391892-the-battleship-chron... (2) https://www.goodreads.com/series/113751-imperial-radch (3) https://www.goodreads.com/series/192752-bobiverse

Cool, I like the other three, I'll give battleship chronicles a go.

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#95

Post by shepherdjerred »

the_af wrote: post #84
giraffe_lady wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to have a lot of resonance with trans people too. I'm autistic but there's enough overlap between the two groups that I've noticed how people in both communities react to the series.

One thing I found cool about Murderbot is that there's no implication "it" is of any particular gender. I'm a man, so I went in with my prejudices and automatically assumed Murderbot is a "he". When reading a review that considered it a "she", I re-read most of it and there's no single indication of its gender, if Murderbot even assumes one. I found that interesting, kind of like that trick Ursula K. Le Guin pulled w…

I’m pretty sure Murderbot explicitly doesn’t have a gender

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#96

Post by shepherdjerred »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #69
dageshi wrote: post #20

I'm a bit mystified by the hype for murderbot. I read it and thought it was OK but a lot of people rave about it. Still not every book is for every person, it didn't connect with me but it very obviously has its fans.

Murderbot is indeed somewhere between OK and good—personally I’m leaning towards good, but I wouldn’t compare it to a masterclass in short-form writing (like anything by Sheckley) or a longer piece you could debate for hours afterwards (like A Memory Called Empire , to give a recent example). It doesn’t try to be mind-numbingly flashy, it doesn’t proselytize, it just brings you to alien vistas to meditate on the natu…

A Memory Called Empire is probably the best book I’ve ever read

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#97

Post by renewiltord »

I found this series a pulp read. Found it because one either won or was nominated for a Hugo. It’s no match for the old Hugos. It’s light fiction in a future universe rather than the kind of novel sci-fi I most enjoy.

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#98

Post by renewiltord »

jandrese wrote: post #68
moh_maya wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I echo this. If you liked murderbot, you might also like the Battleship Chronicles series by L. Claire (1), and ofcourse, the Imperial Radh series by Ann Leickie (2), and bobiverse, mentioned below, by Dennis Taylor (3), among others.. (1) https://www.goodreads.com/series/391892-the-battleship-chron... (2) https://www.goodreads.com/series/113751-imperial-radch (3) https://www.goodreads.com/series/192752-bobiverse

I read the first three books of the Imperial Radh (Ancillary Justice) series and for all of the love they get online I found them rather dull. There's this fairly dramatic collapse of a galaxy spanning empire happening in the background while the protagonist frets over the level of offense she might cause at the tea party if she chooses to wear the more scandalous gloves. The last book gets a bit more into the fractu…

This is pretty amusing but true. I enjoyed the series for its quirks (unable to detect many character genders) but it’s very young adulty with focus on social things and stuff. I think the concept of non-human-minds is better explored by Linda Nagata’s series. You can kind of start in the middle with Edges and go with that.

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#99

Post by aidenn0 »

inanutshellus wrote: post #10

I haven't read the stories for many years now but for some reason both I and my wife assumed the bot would look female, and both of us were independently surprised to learn that the protagonist was cast as male in the upcoming series.

I've only read All Systems Red but definitely referred to the murderbot as "she" when describing the book to others. I just asked my son (who has read the entire series) and he said that he always uses the pronoun "he" for the murderbot.

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#100

Post by acdha »

metaphor wrote: post #76
mananaysiempre wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murderbot is indeed somewhere between OK and good—personally I’m leaning towards good, but I wouldn’t compare it to a masterclass in short-form writing (like anything by Sheckley) or a longer piece you could debate for hours afterwards (like A Memory Called Empire , to give a recent example). It doesn’t try to be mind-numbingly flashy, it doesn’t proselytize, it just brings you to alien vistas to meditate on the natu…

If it's a masterclass in anything, it's proven to be a low-risk, revenue-generating productization formula with options that I've noticed Tor has leaned heavily into for roughly the past decade, e.g. Seanan McGuire, Becky Chambers, Ursula Vernon, Nghi Vo.

Do they have any male authors you describe that way?
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